Intentionally Incoherent Erotica is Best-Seller, Stephen Burt on Women's Basketball, and More

Every day Poets & Writers Magazine scans the headlines—from publishing reports to academic announcements to literary dispatches—for all the news that creative writers need to know. Here are today's stories:

Carolyn Kellogg reports on how the success of Fifty Shades… is influencing book acquisitions. Penguin's Berkely Books recently snapped up Sylvain Reynard's Gabriel's Inferno and Gabriel's Rapture, for seven figures. The central character of the series is described as: "Enigmatic and sexy, Professor Gabriel Emerson is a well respected Dante specialist by day, but by night he devotes himself to an uninhibited life of pleasure." (Los Angeles Times)

If you are near New York City in late August, That Dorothy Parker, a one-person drama, will be performed as part of the annual celebration, Parkerfest. The performance is scheduled for August 23 at the Arclight Theatre. (Broadway World)